Occupational Health and Industrial Hygiene Commons^™

Protecting Cattle Feedyard Workers In The Central States Region: Exploring State, Regional, And National Data On Fatal And Nonfatal Injuries In Agriculture And The Beef Production Sector, Athena K. Ramos, Suraj Adhikari, Risto Rautiainen, Aaron Yoder

The Journal of Extension

Working in agriculture can be dangerous. Despite ongoing efforts of Extension, animal production worker safety has not been adequately addressed. We present state, regional, and national counts and rates on fatal and nonfatal injuries in agriculture and animal production using publicly available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We found that animal production had a high number of fatal injuries and a higher rate of nonfatal injuries than the average within agriculture. More needs to be done to protect livestock workers from injury. Extension professionals can play a key role in increasing safety knowledge and changing behaviors.

Determining The Reliability Of Critical Controls In Construction Projects, Roberta Selleck, Maureen Hassall, Marcus Cattani

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Across the global construction industry, fatalities continue to occur from high-risk activities, where the risk controls have been defined; however, these were unreliable. In the mining industry, Critical Control Risk Management has provided positive results in reducing major accidents, which raises the question, could the Critical Control approach reduce the fatality rate in the construction industry? This study analyzed 10 years of serious and fatal incident investigation reports from four international construction companies to (i) assess the reliability of their Critical Controls (CCs) and (ii) assess the factors that affect the reliability of CCs. The results show the reliability of …

Analysis Of Covid-19 Concerns Raised By The Construction Workforce And Development Of Mitigation Practices, Makram Bou Hatoum, Ali Faisal, Hala Nassereddine, Hadi Sarvari

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

The coronavirus outbreak has created a global health crisis that has disrupted all industries, including the construction industry. Following the onset of the pandemic, construction workers faced and continue to face unprecedented safety and health challenges. Therefore, construction employers established new safety precautions to protect the health and safety of the workforce and minimize the spread of the virus. The new precautions followed the advice and guidelines offered by different health and safety agencies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). With construction projects …

Fall-Protection Harness Training: Donning Skill Improves With Up To Four Repetitions, Zachary Bunney, Roger C. Jensen, Daniel Autenrieth

Safety Health & Industrial Hygiene

Injuries and fatalities from falling remain a major occupational safety concern. Among the multiple tactics for preventing fatal falls is the use of personal fall protection involving wearing a harness connected to a secure anchor point. This requires training to ensure trainees understand the importance of fall protection and have the skill to implement it correctly. One important skill is donning a fall protection harness and adjusting the straps. Those who conduct training on fall protection need to coach trainees through the steps involved in donning a harness. This study was undertaken to learn the benefits of practicing with the …

Influence Of The Inherent Safety Principles On Quantitative Risk In Process Industry: Application Of Genetic Algorithm Process Optimization (Gapo), Mehdi Jahangiri, Abolfazl Moghadasi, Mojtaba Kamalinia, Farid Sadeghianjahromi, Sean Banaee

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Inherent safety (IS) refers to a set of measures that enhance the safety level of processes and equipment, rendering additional equipment and/or add-ons. The early design phase of processes is suited best for implementation of IS strategies as some of such strategies either are impossible to be implemented at the operation phase or substantially increase costs. The purpose of this study is to present a new approach called genetic algorithm process optimization (GAPO), by which processes can be made inherently safer even at the operation phase. This study simulates the IS principle, assessing its impact on quantitative risk and the …

Professional Fishing Industry Fatality, Incident And Injury Data Project, Greg Penney, Bill Byrne, Marcus Cattani

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Analysis of occupational injuries and fatalities within the wild-catch Australian Commercial Fishing Industry (ACFI) is complicated by fishing crew (masters, deckhands etc) classification as workers being dependent upon the applicable occupational health and safety, and worker’s compensation legislation of the relevant State or Territory. While fishing vessels are considered a workplace consistently across all State’s and Territories Work Health and Safety (WHS) / Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) jurisdiction’s legislation, the people who work on them may not be deemed to be workers or employees as per state and territory workers compensation legislation. The exclusion of fishing crew as workers …

Human Skills Assessment As A Support To Human Factor Management, Lorenzo Comberti, Micaela Demichela, Maria Chiara Leva

Conference papers

Automatization, robotics and Industry 4.0 are deeply modifying the working condition with an expected reduction of the number of workers employed in traditional job and an increasing request of new professions. Despite these technologies could limit the involvement of workers, in some sectors humans are still widely employed, as in assembly line of manufacturing companies. As a consequence of this, the Human Factor (HF) will still have relevant influence in term efficiency, quality and safety performances.

This paper approached the HF analysis into the manufacturing field in an assembly line. This study was focused on the analysis of those human-skills …

Developing A Taxonomy Of Ladder Climbing Techniques, Charles Holland

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

The research found on ladder safety indicated broad recognition of the hazards of using ladders, especially in the construction industries. OSHA regulations, as well as general guidance on ladder safety point to training workers on ladder usage techniques as being one of the most useful means of reducing risk of falling. However, no studies could be found directly investigating different techniques for ascending and descending ladders. In order to study and compare techniques, this project was initiated to establish a taxonomy of techniques for climbing and descending ladders Six patterns were hypothesized. A secondary purpose was to compare the patterns …

Initiation Of A Roundtable Meeting To Determine Safety Hazards And Provide Education To Range Bison Herd Workers, Lucia Finocchiaro

Capstone Experience

This capstone project serves as an important piece of greater project studying bison handling. Bison production is both a growing and dangerous industry. As a new enterprise in many parts of the country and on tribal lands, significant numbers of untrained employees may be hired. This project undertakes methods to better understand the risks associated with bison handling and to thereby improve handling procedures and increase safety. Herd managers (from tribal and non-tribal sites), researchers, safety experts, and stakeholders were brought together for a roundtable meeting in Omaha. This meeting was designed to provide stakeholders a forum to discuss common …

Effect Of Repetition On Time To Don And Adjust A Fall Protection Harness, Zachary Bunney

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

A major concern in the field of occupational safety and health is the fatalities resulting from falling from heights. In the construction industry, a common approach for protecting workers is the use of a fall protection harness connected to a secure anchor. To be effective, harnesses must be fitted and adjusted to the individual. This requires training on adjusting the straps of a harness, and the training must include practice to ensure the worker has the skills to make a secure fit. It would be useful for those who conduct training on harness fitting to know if trainees would benefit …

Working Conditions For Erotic Dancers: A Review Of Health And Safety Concerns From A Minneapolis Based Needs Assessment, Alexander Twohy

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The present studies utilizes data from a needs assessment for dancers in Minneapolis-based strip clubs focusing on structural and in-club safety concerns as well as levels of cleanliness within the club. Research was conducted utilizing Participatory Action Research with help from the Sex Workers Outreach Project: Minneapolis. The assessment consisted of an online survey utilizing both quantitative and qualitative questions (n = 62) with follow-up interviews for willing participants (n = 33). Questions regarding personal safety, structural safety, cleanliness levels, and exposure to diseases were reported using descriptive statistics, and qualitative responses were examined with thematic analysis. Data indicated that …

Improving Workers' Safety And Health In The Zimbabwean Mining And Quarrying Industry, Bernard Mabika

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Lack of effective occupational safety and health (OSH) strategies is a reason that

workplace accidents in the mining and quarrying industry remain high, making the

industry one of the riskiest operations worldwide. The purpose of this multiple case study

was to explore successful strategies mining and quarrying leaders in Zimbabwe used to

improve OSH. The key research question addressed successful strategies leaders in the

mining and quarrying industry use to improve employee occupational safety and health in

Zimbabwe. Six successful business leaders from 3 mining and quarrying mines in

Zimbabwe demonstrated an exception to unsafe practices, particularly through their

exceptional …

Strategies To Reduce Occupational Injuries And Illnesses In Government Agencies, Sandra Montgomery

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite regulatory efforts of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), 104 cases of nonfatal occupational illnesses and injuries (OIIs) per 10,000 full-time workers required time away from work in 2015. Although OII rates in private and public sectors are high, the rates among state and local government agencies were over 50% higher than private sector rates in 2015, especially in the healthcare industry. OIIs can lead to reduced organizational productivity and performance. Guided by the leader member exchange theory (LMXT) and risk homeostasis theory (RHT), the purpose of this single case study was to explore effective strategies that supervisors …

Measuring Employee Engagement: Are Engaged Employees Less Likely To Sustain A Workplace Injury?, Rebecca Mullins

Online Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on employee engagement in a manufacturing facility and strives to determine whether less-engaged employees are more likely to sustain an injury while on the job. Specifically, this study analyzes employee engagement with other employees, employee engagement with management, employee engagement with policies and procedures as well as employee's self-initiative. A Likert-scale survey was administered and was both voluntarily and anonymously completed by 171 hourly employees. The data was then analyzed and it was concluded that certain engagement criteria, do in fact, relate to an employee's on-the-job injury status.

Assessment Of Current Occupational Safety And Health Regulations And Legislation In The Caribbean, Muge Akpinar-Elci, Myngoc Nguyen, Marvin Randall, Satesh Bidaisee, Omur Elci, Olaniyi Olayinka

Center for Global Health Publications

Neglecting occupational safety and health (OSH) can have adverse and even deadly consequences. While OSH is important in any nation, the issue is particularly concerning in developing countries, including ones in the Caribbean. The purpose of this study, which was carried out in 2012 and 2013, was to examine the reasons for an apparent fundamental lack of awareness of OSH in the Caribbean. We conducted a descriptive study, in which a questionnaire was administered, via telephone, to key policy-making representatives from six English-speaking Caribbean nations, in order to assess the current OSH environment in their countries. We also did a …

Leadership Practices That Improve The Workplace Safety Environment, Nathan Nomore Chikono

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Inadequate leadership is the reason workplace accidents in the mining industry remain high, making the industry one of the most hazardous operational activities in the world. Unsafe leadership practices may result in death or injury to workers. A group of 30 mining company leaders from 3 gold mines in Zimbabwe revealed an exception to these hazardous practices, however, notable through their outstanding safety improvement records. To better understand what these practitioners were doing, this multicase study research design explored their strategies to improve the workplace safety environment in the mines. Data were collected using audio-recorded semistructured interviews and document analyses. …

Appraising The Current Status Of The National Institute For Occupational Safety And Health's Fatality Assessment Control Evaluation Program, Douglas Schwindt

Online Theses and Dissertations

Today, generally 13 U.S. workers die from workplace injuries. In 1970 on average, there were as many as 38 workplace fatalities on each day (DOL 2016). As a response to this alarming reality, the government enacted the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970. This governmental legislation created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to regulate safety in the workplace; as well as, The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health who was charged with "developing new knowledge in the field of occupational safety and health and to transfer that knowledge into practice" (CDC NIOSH 2017).

In order to understand …

The Heinrich Model: Determining Contemporary Relevance, Bryan P. Basford

Online Theses and Dissertations

For as long as his work has been at the core of the safety profession, Herbert William Heinrich has been a staple of debate. His 1931 work Industrial Accident Prevention: A Scientific Approach has sparked worldwide debate on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of his safety theories, as well as the accuracy or inaccuracy of his research and methods.

Heinrich's work is undoubtedly cited time and again as the foundational teaching for behavior-based safety, as well as countless other teachings in the safety profession as a whole. Despite the continued challenges to the validity of his work, there has been little …

Analysis Of Union Safety: Determining Relationships Between Union Membership And Injury And Fatality Rates, Madelyn K. Street

Online Theses and Dissertations

In under two centuries the labor union transformed the American workplace, improving wages, benefits, employee engagement, and safety. In more recent years, the government and other organizations have caught up in focusing on safety. Countless studies have been conducted and determined that unions have a significant positive impact on safety compared to work environments absent of a union. Using Bureau of Labor Statistics data for 2006-2015, an investigation into the trends of union membership and injuries and fatalities reported in the United States was conducted. It was determined that there was not significant correlation between increased union membership and improved …

Influence Of Psychological Empowerment, Leadership, And Climate On Safety Outcomes, Christine Healy

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research has demonstrated that safety outcomes are impacted by workplace risk factors, but also supervisory practices and employee actions. An area that has not been explored is the impact of employee cognitions on safety outcomes defined as work-related injuries. Based on the conceptual framework of psychological empowerment (PE), the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of employee cognitions as measured by PE as related to leadership and safety climate and the occurrence of work-related injury. The research examined the mediating effect of (PE) on the factors of leadership and safety climate and their relationship to work-related injury. …

Ethnographic Insights Into Safety Communication For Frontline Workers, Kelly Jaunzems, Lelia Green, David Leith, Christine Teague

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Recent calls for organisation studies to embrace ‘the practice turn’ (Whittington, 2011) have expanded into an understanding of the potential for ethnographic research in occupational health and safety (OHS) research (Pink et al., 2016). The ethnographic project described here, with fieldwork conducted between 2008 and 2010, is one element of this growing appreciation of the potential for qualitative research in industrial settings. Ethnographies have not often been used in OHS settings, and ‘much practicebased knowledge remains undocumented, informal, unspoken and thus unaccounted for’ (Pink et al., 2016, p. 27). This study was motivated by an aim to make explicit the …

Chores At Times Of Fatal Or Serious Injuries Associated With Tractor Overturns With And Without Rollover Protection, Henry P. Cole, Melvin L. Myers, Susan C. Westneat

Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention Faculty Publications

This study describes chores when farmers were either fatally or seriously injured and required emergency medical treatment as a result of overturns of tractors with or without rollover protective structures (ROPS). Data from the 2002 Kentucky Farm Tractor Overturn Survey were used for this study. The data were collected by a telephone survey of a population-based random sample of 6063 (7.98%) of Kentucky’s 76,017 farm operators as listed in the Kentucky Agricultural Statistics Service database. Of farm operators interviewed, 551 (9.1%) reported 603 overturns and 5512 (90.9%) reported no overturns in the history of their farm, covering a period from …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of Safety Training Provided To Corrections Personnel In Appalachia, Ali K. Al Yammahi

Online Theses and Dissertations

The context of the study was assessment of whether corrections officers in Appalachia are receiving adequate health and safety training who attended health and safety trainings sessions provided by the OSHA Training Institute and Education Center on the campus of Eastern Kentucky University. Participants included in the study were corrections officers who have been working in corrections for a minimum of two years. Participants were required to be working in Appalachian corrections during distribution of the questionnaire. Participants were selected by using convenience and snowball sampling procedures. The questionnaire was sent on 4 separate occasions, 10 of the expected 30 …

Stairway Uniformity Measurement: What Lateral Location Should Be Measured?, Lee Calf Looking

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

BACKGROUND: This project addressed an unresolved issue involving measurement methods for determining step uniformity. Leading experts on stairway safety agree that lack of step uniformity within a flight contributes to risk of missteps. A relatively new method for precisely measuring step dimensions is the nosing-to-nosing method. An issue in applying the method is lack of agreement on the lateral location to make the measurements. That location depends on where stairway users ascend and descend relative to the width of the steps. A prior investigator examined people descending to determine the lateral distance between the handrail center and the mid-line of …

Hard Or Soft? The Relationship Between Power And Organisational Incident Rates, Susanne Bahn, Llandis Barratt-Pugh

Llandis Barratt-Pugh

This paper examines the power that managers have to impact on workplace safety and how in mixed method studies our preconceptions about the hardness and softness of the relevant data may be misplaced. The civil construction industry (CCI) in WA provides the case for this discussion. Workers in this industry are constantly battling between safety compliance and production pressures in an era of economic boom. The examination of 3,882 incident reports, upon which this paper’s conclusions are drawn, revealed that these ‘‘hard’’ data may often obscure incidents that occur as organisations may be pressured into providing reportable incident figures that …

The Effectiveness Of Risk Assessment Training On Self-Reported Safe Behaviors Of Employees Of A Manufacturing Organization, Jeffrey Tate Preston

Online Theses and Dissertations

This study is to examine the effectiveness of risk assessment training on self-reported safe behaviors of individuals who are employed by a manufacturing organization in a central Kentucky organization. The analysis was comprised of 31 participants that worked in the production and office areas of a manufacturing organization. These individuals volunteered to participate in the study through the use of informed consent.

A pre-test was conducted prior to a risk assessment training being conducted at the facility. Three weeks after the training was preformed a post-test was taken to evaluate the effectiveness of the training. By determining the a summary …

Thermal Stress In North Western Australian Iron Ore Mining Staff, Jermiah John Peiffer, Chris Abbiss

Research outputs 2013

Introduction:Demand for Australian mined iron ore has increased employment within this sector, thus exposing increased numbers of workers to the harsh Australian climate. This study examined the influence of hot (>30°C wet bulb globe temperature) environmental temperatures, consistent with working in North Western Australia, on iron ore mining staff.Methods:Core temperature, hydration status, perceived exertion, mood, and fatigue state were measured in 77 participants at three time points (pre-, mid-, and post-shift) during a normal 12-h shift at an open-cut iron ore mining/processing site (n = 31; Site1) and an iron ore processing/shipping site (n = 46; Site 2).Results:A significant …

The State Of Health And Safety Program Management As It Pertains To Osha In The Funeral Industry: A Formative Analysis, Brad William Kuchnicki

Online Theses and Dissertations

From a law perspective, contingency refers to possible events that may or may not happen, by which, when happening, some particular title may be affected. In the funeral industry, OSHA regulations govern a vast array of procedures directly related to day-to-day operations. If at any time one of these controls have or have not been implemented, enforced or altered, the organization could be influenced. This thesis will analyze the state of health and safety program management as it pertains to OSHA in the funeral industry.

Safety On A Drilling Rig: Is It Safety Culture?, Jonathan Wade Henson

Online Theses and Dissertations

Why do workers on a modern offshore drilling rig continue to make decisions leading to unsafe conditions, acts or incidents? In a perfect world, workers in any industry would go to work and come home in the same condition as they started the day: no incidents. Worker injuries and deaths are all too common in the workplace whether on land or at sea. On a modern drilling rig, operating hundreds of miles offshore, far from the nearest hospital, working in all kinds of weather presents an industry ripe with risks. The worker or rig hand holds the key to making …

Recycling And Reuse Of Radioactive Materials, Thomas Joseph O'Dou

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Radiochemistry Program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) has a Radiation Protection Program that was designed to provide students with the ability to safely work with radioactive materials in quantities that are not available in other academic environments. Requirements for continuous training and supervision make this unique program capable of turning out graduates that have an understanding of contamination and dose control techniques that complement their knowledge of the elements that they work with. The Program has also adopted a radionuclide recovery and reuse program that has provided materials from other universities, government agencies, and private companies …